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The stories of the creature known as a rougarou are as diverse as the spelling of its name, though they are all connected to francaphone cultures through a common derived belief in the Loup-garou. Loup is French for wolf, and garou (from Frankish garulf, cognate with English werewolf) is a man who transforms into a wolf at his or her own will.

Rougarou represents a variant pronunciation and spelling of the original French loup-garou. According to Barry Jean Ancelet, an academic expert on Cajun folklore and professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the tale of the rougarou is a common legend across Frencasdash Louisiana. Both words are used interchangeably in southern Louisiana. Some people call the monster rougarou; otheasdrs refer to it as the loup garou.

The rougarou legend has been spread for many generations, either directly from French settlers to Louisiana (New France) or via ta is said to prowl the swamps around Acadiana and Greater New Orleans, and possibly the fields or forests of the regions. The rougarou most often is described as a creature with a human body and the head of as wolf or dog, similar to the werewolf legend.

Often the story-telling has been used to inspired fear and obedience. One such example is stories that have been told by elders in attempts to persuade Cajun children to behave. According to another variation, the wolf-like beast will hunt down and kill Catholics who do not follow the rules of Lent. This coincides with the French Catholic loup-garou stories, according to which the method for turning into a werewolf is to break Lent seven years in a row.

A common blood sucking legend sayasds that the rougarou is under the spell for 101 days. After that time, the curse is transferred from person to person when the rougarou draws another human’s blood. During that day the creature returns to human form. Although

Other stories range from the rougarou as a headless horseman to the rougarou being derived from witchcraft. In the latter claim, only a witch can make a rougarou—either by turning into a wolf herself, or by cursing others with lycanthropy.

This legend dates back to the 16th Century. They considered the Rugaru as more of a genetic defect rather than something you could catch from another person or a spell. Basically, a person with this gene would live a normal life until it becomes active. Then, the creature's bones moves under its skin and it gains an uncontrollable hunger trait, craving raw meat. However, the final transformation wouldn't be attained until the creature takes a bite of human flesh.

The creature, spelled Rougaru, has been associated with Native American legends, though there is some dispute. Such folklore versions of the rugaru vary from being mild Bigfoot (Sasquatch) creatures to cannibal-like Native American wendigos. Some dispute the connection between Native American folktales and the francophone rugaru.

As is the norm with legends transmitted by oral tradition, stories often contradict one another. The stories of the wendigo vary by tribe and region, but the most common cause of the change is typically related to cannibalism.

A modified example, not in the original wendigo legends, is that if a person sees a rugaru, that person will be transformed into one. Thereafter, the unfortunate victim will be doomed to wander in the form of this monster. That rugaru story bears some resemblance to a Native American version of the wendigo legend related in a short story by Algernon Blackwood. In Backwoods's fictional adaptation of the legend, seeing a wendigo causes one to turn into a wendigo.

It is important to note that rugaru is not a native Ojibwa word, nor is it derived from the languages of neighboring Native American peoples. However, it has a striking similarity to the French word for werewolf, loup garou. It's possible the Turtle Mountain Ojibwa or Chippewa in North Dakota picked up the French name for "hairy human-like being" from the influence of French Canadian trappers and missionaries with whom they had extensive dealings. Somehow that term also had been referenced to their neighbors' stories of Bigfoot.Author Peter Matthiessen argues that the rugaru is a separate legend from that of the cannibal-like giant wendigo. While the wendigo is feared, he notes that the rugaru is seen as sacred and in tune with Mother Earth, somewhat like Bigfoot legends are today.

Though identified with Bigfoot, there is little evidence in the indigenous folklore that it is meant to refer the same or a similar creature.